Blank Slate
by violet-phoenix-rose
Summary: The last thing Victoire remembers is flying into a tree. Seven years have passed, and she's finally waking up. Taking her life back has some consequences - including discovering that the only boy she ever liked has feelings for her. Victoire/Teddy. DONE!
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

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A/N: For the Realization Challenge. The challenge name has very little to do with this... Oh, and in case you can't tell (cause I don't do much NextGen and I don't think I've written anything using her at all), my main character / narrator is Victoire.

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I awoke with a jolt. Where had the past seven years of my life gone? Really, it felt like I had been 12 just yesterday - in fact, unless there was something else at work here, it HAD been yesterday!

My surroundings, if you could call them that, didn't seem to help matters. It looked and smelled like some sort of hospital, but I almost knew it was of the _normal_ variety. There was something weird in my arm, and several big beeping contraptions near my bed. They looked sort-of like what Uncle George messed with sometimes, except they seemed to have a purpose.

"She's awake!" yelled a nurse who stood a few paces from me. "Let whichever one of her odd family members is out there know she's made it."

Odd family members... She's made it... All of that rolled around in my head for a few minutes, and then it got a lot worse - I realized that the last thing I remembered doing, ever, was flying into that huge oak tree Uncle Percy always meant to take down. Maybe seven years really HAD passed, and I'd been in some weird state of being - alive but not actually doing anything - since the accident. Unless my memories were seriously screwed with, which was unlikely but not impossible, there were probably a few cousins I'd never met. Hadn't Aunt Audrey been pregnant, last I remembered? There was going to be a lot to catch up on.

"Vicky!" What seemed like a human cannon-ball charged at me. I couldn't make out who it was, being technically brain-dead for so long, but I only had two relatives who were boys and about eleven now...

"Louis?" I asked, knowing I had a 50-50 shot. It was either my little brother or, if memory served right, accident-prone Hugo. I remembered those two being inseperable and practically identical to boot, which meant that if I had the wrong one they'd probably be nice about it - even their mothers had trouble keeping them straight at times, if I remembered right, and that was never a good sign.

"Aunt Verry! Come in here now! She remembers me!" Yeah, it was Louis, and it seemed like either me being fine was a really huge deal or some idiot had made the mistake of giving him coffee. Probably both. I didn't remember an 'Aunt Verry,' but you never knew how many family members I didn't know. There had always been too many to keep track of...

Next thing I knew, a woman who looked passingly familiar walked into the hospital room and gave me a good once-over. "It's a miracle," she cooed, and I took a good look at her. She was in her late-thirties, looked a bit younger than that, and was obviously expecting. _Great_, I thought, _between all the cousins there's probably enough for a proper match by now_.

"Who are you?" I asked, staring the woman straight in the eyes. I didn't quite know why I did that, but I remembered that it tended to get to people - maybe that was it, maybe it wasn't, I'll never know. I'd also used it to psych out some of the smaller kids, but I'd had to stop that after Roxie took it up.

"Your Aunt Verity," she said condescendingly, as though I was about six years old. It didn't take a genius to realize I'd matured physically and that I might be capable of intelligent thought, but this woman didn't seem to get it. I paused and tried to guess which of the uncles would be stupid enough to marry a woman like that - Uncle George would probably fall for this sort of twit, and Aunt Angie HAD left him ages ago... Yeah, that would be it.

"You're Uncle George's second wife," I said, still staring her in the eyes. I wondered what she made of that and had to stop myself from laughing at the idea. Then again, it wasn't funny - no matter how good a person this woman was, and I wasn't guessing that was much, I almost knew Fred and Roxie just ADORED her. Why of course I can do sarcasm on occasion - why do you ask?

"How'd you know?" she laughed, as though I was some sort of trained monkey or performer or something. It's people like that who get me, people who don't think a pretty girl like me can think for herself.

"Because last I remember, he was the only single one of my uncles," I explained, hoping she didn't laugh at this too. I was forgetting Uncle Charlie, of course, but he'd given up on trying to find someone ages ago so he didn't count.

"Do you think you can walk?" Aunt Verity wasn't being quite so playful now, but I still had to wonder how anyone could stand her. Unless she was better with them than with me, I had a good feeling the younger kids COULDN'T stand her.

"Let me try," I commanded, trying to throw all the power I remembered my mother having into it. I yanked the cord out of my arm (it didn't hurt) and climbed out of the infernal hospital bed. I could definently walk, which almost surprised me. It certainly surprised Queen Condescending, who nearly collapsed.

"Well, in that case, you're going home," she said, as though it was the best thing in the world. "Here's some things that should fit you." She handed me a bag containing clothes and pointed towards the bathroom. I slipped in and came out five minutes later, wearing too-tight jeans and a baggy t-shirt with a cat on it. Neither item was flattering, but I wasn't going to push Aunt Whatsit's limits - at least not yet.

I followed her and Louis out of the hospital and into a parking garage, where she stopped in front of a lime green sports-car. I didn't even WANT to know how she turned driving that eyesore into a good idea, but I hopped into the front seat nonetheless. I wanted to see people again, figure out what I'd missed, meet the little cousins I knew I had... It was going to be interesting.


	2. Chapter 2

Thirty minutes later, I was home and happier than any human being could be. I was never the sort of girl who liked being home, preferring to be with my friends or at least the other relatives, but being away from your life for seven years changes you, I guess. At that moment in time, I wanted nothing more than to see my parents and possibly the flock of cats. I know you probably call a large group of felines something totally different, but there had been six the last I remembered, and who knew how many there were now. The irony of this, of course, is that my mum hated cats and my dad loved them, and me and my siblings could never take a side. Oh, the deliciousness of life!

"Victoire!" A blur came dashing out of the house - my mum, yelling for what might have been the first time in her life. She just didn't yell at people - didn't have to yell, I guess. She had always been too stunning to ignore, and just a tone of annoyance in her voice and every person who heard her would shut up and listen.

"Mum!" I slipped out of the car and ran towards her. "I don't know who's happier, you or me."

"It's a miracle - you're alright! I didn't think this could happen, but..." she started crying tears of happiness - another thing she never did. People really HAD changed!

Next out of the house were my dad and a tall, pretty girl who had to be my little sister, Dominique. She sure didn't look like the awkward eight-year-old I remembered her as - she had more of Mum's beauty than I did, and that was saying something. Even more frighteningly, she was only 15. This was going to be odd.

To make up for the fact that Dad didn't seem capable of speaking, Dominique wouldn't shut up. "Vickie! This is fantastic! Aunt Verity passed the word on to us, and we're having a huge party this evening - family mainly, but other people we think you'd like to see too. What do you think of Aunt Verity? I think she's amazing, but some of the other rellies aren't too keen on her and Roxie outright DESPISES the woman for no good reason at all."

"Domi, calm down," I said, not sure there was anything else I COULD say. "I'm not sure what to think of Aunt Verity yet, but I have a feeling I know why Roxie doesn't like her. And a party? Couldn't you give me a day or two of peace? I mean, I just woke up from seven years stuck in my head, and you're making me deal with lots of people."

"The party wasn't MY idea," Domi replied innocently, batting her eyelashes in a way I was pretty sure she usually used on boys. "Aunt Ginny thought it up; I'm just carrying out the logistics of it and warning you in advance. Odds are there'll be seventy people - does that sound fun or what?"

I was about ready to pass out at that part. Seventy people? I wasn't sure I KNEW seventy people! The relatives were probably half of that, and I could think of ten or so people who might as well have been relatives, so that left twenty-five people I didn't really now. "You haven't changed a bit, Domi," I said - she'd always been more of a social, people-oriented girl than me.

"Thank you," she laughed, mistakenly hearing that comment as a compliment. "It'll be lots of fun - everyone's dying to see you, and a few in particular..."

I knew what she meant, of course. There were a few relatives I was dying to see, Aunt Audrey and Roxie, mainly - Aunt Audrey because she was the only adult that got me, and Roxie because, even as I remembered her as a nine-year-old, she'd always had a biting sarcasm that somehow lifted my spirits every time she went at it. There was someone else, too - a boy.

Before I really get into this, let me first say that Teddy Lupin had always treated me like something between a little sister and a friend - standing up for me when he had to and being nice otherwise. Since he was two years older than me, this worked perfectly. Thing is, my last memory relating to him (other than the fact that his bad aim caused my accident) was that I was really starting to like him in the more-then-friends way. Maybe the feelings were returned a bit, but I wasn't sure about that part. He'd never said or done anything to make me see things either way, but Mum's main theory about boys was that they were weird like that. Lucky me - I was about to test that one.

"Does he have a girlfriend?" I asked Domi, returning from my thoughts. She knew who I was talking about, of course.

"Yes," she sighed, "a pretty solid one called Holly Snow. People - not me, of course - think he's going to propose at Christmas."

"And what day is today?" I had to think fast - find out how long I had to deal with this problem.

"August 15. You have four months. If it makes you feel better, Mum and Dad and nearly all the other relatives dislike Holly. If his grandmother was still living, she'd probably hate the girl as well."

"Wait - Andromeda died?" My head was spinning with all the stuff I now had to remember - never a good thing, let me tell you.

"Yeah, last March. One heck of a funeral."

"And our grandparents?" I had to ask - they were around Andromeda's age, and there are questions that must be handled so you don't look like a moron in front of the whole clan.

"Both the Weasley ones died three years ago, and the Delacour set is still living."

"I can remember that."

"Good luck."

Great - when even your own sister thinks you can't do something, you really ARE sunk!

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A/N: Please review!


	3. Chapter 3

Because it doesn't shine a good light on me as a person, I'm going to skip the rest of that afternoon and fast-forward to the party. Let's just say that I got forced into an ensemble that was way too formal by my standards. It fit, which was probably the only good thing about it - an ivory short-sleeved shirt with a lot of lace on it, nice jeans, and a really uncomfortable pair of sandals that I intended to ditch at the first possible moment. Somehow, Mum and Domi thought I looked charming, which wasn't _quite_ what I was going for...

So, the party... Luckily for me, the first people who turned up were Aunt Luna, her husband, and their seven-year-old twin sons. Luna isn't REALLY my aunt, nor is she the aunt of any of the cousins, but she might as well be - when James took to calling her Aunt Luna, ten years ago, the name kinda stuck. She was, of course, one of those non-family people I knew would be there.

"Victoire," she said politely, "good to have you back. I thought you'd had an unfortunate run-in with a Wrackspurt, but Roxie cleared me up on that one - bad aim, wasn't it?"

"You could say that," I said tactfully. Aunt Luna had filled the surrogate-mother role for Roxie since Aunt Angelina ran off when Roxie was five - oh, gosh, that would have been eleven years ago, wouldn't it...

"Could you take this to the kitchen?" she asked, handing me a casserole dish of something that smelled like vanilla. "It's an old family recipe, one my mother used to make - no one's had it in ages, but Lorcan tested it and he likes it, so it can't be too bad..."

One of the first things that one learns to remember about Aunt Luna is that she's a hit-or-miss cook. Sometimes she does amazing-tasting stuff, and the rest of the time you're half tempted to slip her recipe to that acquaintance of your dad's who works in the poisoning department at St. Mungo's. The impression I'd always gotten from the relatives was that such unpredictability ran in her family, which was never a good sign.

Luckily for me, who should appear at that very second but my favorite cousin, Roxie herself. I put down the vanilla-scented dish the moment I saw her, which was probably good for me - the moment she saw me, I got wrapped in a full-body hug.

"Vic!" she yelled in my ear. "We have a LOT to catch up on." She began dragging me to the sitting room, where we probably wouldn't be overheard - one more benefit of her persona, I guess. "So you met the step-witch, uh?"

"I'm guessing you mean Aunt Verity," I stammered. "I don't know why, but I can't stand her - she was so condescending towards me, and without any reason."

"Yeah, that's who I mean, although I call her the step-witch cause it's more appropriate. She is THE most horrible human being I've ever met, which is odd cause she didn't strike you like that, did she?"

"No," I muttered. It was only natural for Roxie to dislike this woman, so I was taking her side like usual.

"Well, she is, but mainly towards me. The chief problem, the way I see it, is that she thinks I'm gonna turn out exactly like my mum did - the sort of girl who'll totally ensnare a guy and then out-of-the-blue leave him. Due to this, she treats me like... you've heard of Cinderella, right?"

"Yeah." Aunt Hermione, in a misguided attempt to help Roxie and Domi and I understand Muggle culture, had given us books of fairy-tales one Christmas.

"Well, I think I'm bloody Cinderella, and the step-witch is the evil stepmother who doesn't get any comuppance in the end. Horrible, huh?"

"Yeah. Is she that bad towards Fred?"

"Not quite. He's a boy, and he takes after Dad in looks and personality, so he's safer than I am. Me, on the other hand - all I got of Dad is pale skin and a gift for bending rules, so of COURSE the step-witch thinks she's got a point. So, onto more interesting things - Domi told you about Teddy's horrible girlfriend, right?"

"How bad is she?" More than anyone else, Roxie was the one who I knew would give me a straight answer.

"Think the step-witch but twenty years old," Roxie explained. "I'd say you're a candidate for taking her down and getting him back, if you take my advice on it. I'm no expert around guys - most of the ones in my year are scared half to death of me - but my friend Abby Jordan gave me some pointers on how to do this sort of thing. You'd like Abby - she'd be here tonight if it weren't for the fact that she's on holiday in France."

"Okay, go," I said, trying to get Roxie to actually be helpful.

"Well, the first thing you do is go straight up to Holly and make sure she knows who you are. Talk to her a little bit, try to steer the conversation so that she says something negative about Teddy, and then make some comment about that sort of thing running in his family. She'll ask what you mean, at which point you need to say that it's not your place to say stuff about that and that she should ask him herself. If you can throw in hints of a falling-in-like sort of thing before your accident, that'll help, but it's optional. As soon as you do that, go find some relative to yap with for a few moments so it doesn't look like you're setting things up."

"Setting WHAT up?" I asked, not sure where Roxie was going.

"Let me finish! What'll happen next is she'll corner him and get in a huge yelling match over the stuff you hinted at. He won't explain it, so she'll scream some stuff about not being able to stand him and storm out of the house. That's when you make your move."

"Which means?"

"You go to where he's standing and start talking to him. It's that simple, Vic - if you can remember that plan, you're golden."

"And it's supposed to work?"

"Course it will! You don't trust me, do you?"

"Not really, but I'm desperate. As your dad would say, this is crazy enough that it HAS to work."


	4. Chapter 4

Five or so minutes later, I was ready to give Roxie's crazy plan a go. Casually, I walked up to Holly Snow - Roxie had pointed out who she was, which made things a lot easier. "Hello," I said, hoping she'd talk to me.

"You must be Victoire," Holly said, girlishly giggling. It didn't quite work - she was a level of pretty that is uncommon in 20-year-olds, which is to say that I would have bet money she was part veela like my mother.

"Yeah, that's me. So, I heard you're Teddy's girlfriend." Internally, I cursed myself for how casually I brought that up. Luckily for me, Roxie was chasing a kid that was probably related to me, so she didn't see this.

"Yes," she said, "I am. He's so sweet. Odds are he'll propose around Christmas."

Thankfully, that wasn't news to me. I decided it was time for Roxie's key idea. "I wouldn't bet on that. He's not much for commitment, unless he's changed since I last saw him."

"What do you mean? He seems PERFECTLY committed to me."

"In that case, you don't know him like I do. This avoidance-of-commitment stuff runs in his family, so it's inevitable that he's the same way."

"Really? What do you mean?"

I had Holly where I wanted her now. "It's not my place to say," I cooed. "Ask him about it yourself."

Roxie apparently knew what she was talking about. As I sauntered over to a kid that was probably my cousin Lilly, Holly went off in a different direction.

---

I got lucky - Lilly, now age 11, talked my ear off for a good five minutes before the next part of Roxie's crazy idea kicked into gear. Right as Lilly started into what was probably going to be a lengthy discussion about cats, I told her to shut up. Holly had cornered Teddy, and I had to watch what happened.

"How COULD you?" she yelled loud enough that there were probably people in France who heard her.

"What did I do?" he asked, looking extremely confused.

"You never TOLD me that avoiding commitment runs in your family!"

"It does? Who told you that?"

By now, realizing that Holly was going to mention me, I figured it would be a good idea to pretend I cared about Lilly's cat obsession. Still, as I listened to her surprisingly intelligent argument on why cats are better than dogs, my attention was on what was going on twenty yards away.

"Vickie, of course," Holly moaned, as though it was blatantly obvious. "That girl... It's like she thinks she can pick up where she left off with you!"

"You don't understand," Teddy said in my defense. "We grew up together. She's like a sister to me, nothing else."

"Yeah, sure," Holly rolled her eyes in disbelief. "If that's the case, why does it seem like you've spent every spare moment you've had at that hospital, waiting for her to wake up?"

"Family means nothing to you, does it?"

"That's IT! I've had it with you! Goodbye and get lost!" With that, Holly Snow dashed out of the house.

---

I debated hiding after that, as it was, in a twisted way, my fault that my childhood friend had just been dumped by his extremely pissed-off girlfriend. I didn't, of course; Roxie would have killed me if I'd tried, and it just seemed like a good idea to stay put. I walked around aimlessly, not talking to anyone, until I heard a voice I wanted to hear more than anything in the world.

"Victoire? Is it really you?" I turned and saw Teddy standing about five paces from me. Determinedly, I walked towards him.

"I'm so sorry," I said, but he cut me off.

"Sorry for what?" he asked, and I knew he really did have no idea what I was talking about.

"It's my fault your girlfriend ran off like that," I said, almost regretting what I'd done.

"Strangely enough, I should probably thank you, not forgive you."

There was something I was missing, so I looked at him in a way that was clear up the fact that I was now the clueless one.

"I'd been trying to think of a way to tell her it wasn't working for nearly a year, but none of the things I came up with worked. You basically did it for me, without having any idea what you'd done. Thanks."

I was stunned and speechless. I'd gotten rid of his girlfriend, and here he was, THANKING me for it. Wherever Roxie was, for I knew she was watching this, she was probably cracking up.

"And I should be the one apologizing, not you," he said, bending the topic a little. "It was my bad aim that caused your accident, remember?"

This wasn't something Roxie had prepared me for. Not knowing what else to do, I fled from the room, went out the back door of the house, ran to the rose garden, and realized I was having an emotional breakdown.

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A/N: I really need suggestions! Please review and let me know what should happen next.


	5. Chapter 5

"Vic? You okay?" I looked up and saw Roxie, staring at me as though I was officially crazy. For a nearly seventeen-year-old girl, she did it pretty well.

"God, no," I sobbed. I'd been curled up in a little ball on a stone bench, crying my eyes out, for almost twenty minutes. "I've ruined everything."

"Stuff it, Vic," Roxie snapped, and I stopped crying. "What exactly did he SAY? I was watching, and it looked totally fine until you ran off out-of-the-blue."

"I tried to apologize for scaring off his girlfriend, and he actually thanked me for what I'd done. And it got worse - he said that he should be the one asking forgiveness, not me, because of the accident and everything. What exactly DID happen with that, anyways? I don't remember much of it..."

"You want the whole story?"

"Yeah."

"We were playing that game we'd made up - I forget what we called it, but it was basically Capture The Flag on brooms. It was you, Teddy, and James against me, Fred, and Domi. Teddy had finally found the improvised flag - we were using rubber balls, remember - and he was trying get to your team's base. Fred and I cornered him, and he threw the ball to you. Thing is, his aim was way off and you were going way too fast, so you swerved and flew straight into that tree."

"And why exactly were we at Uncle Percy's house?"

"Baby shower for Aunt Audrey. The smaller kids were inside, with one of the aunts watching them, I think."

"Oh God, it was worse than I remember. And what happened after I crashed."

"We all totally freaked out. James got sent to find the adults, cause he was closest to the house and a quick runner. Even better flyer - anyone who's seen him at school knows that - but Teddy wasn't letting anyone on brooms after you crashed. Domi and Fred and I just stood there, hoping you weren't gonna die - it looked really bad to us. And Teddy - oh, God, he was crying, he was that worried about you. I don't think there's a person in the world he cared more about in that moment."

"And then what?"

"Next thing I know - time was being really weird that afternoon - James is back, with all the aunts right behind him. They were all panicking majorly, especially your mum and Aunt Ginny. Eventually, they took you to that hospital, and you stayed there ever since - until this morning."

"Wow. And there was always someone there, waiting for me?"

"Two people, actually. I practically spent the summer before this one at that hospital - but then again, that WAS the summer that Dad and the step-witch got married, so I had good reason to be hiding like that. And Teddy... Every chance he got, he was there, waiting for you. Towards the end of it, he was the only one who really thought you'd wake up. I mean, I did, but in case you haven't realized, no one listens to me."

"Oh, God, I'll never be able to repay him for all that, for being the only non-family person doing the vigil."

"You don't have to, silly! He treated it like penance for causing your accident. It's not like he didn't want to be there, cause he totally did, but he felt like being there every chance he got would make up for causing your accident. All the relatives told him he didn't have to be there, but the more they said that, the more he WAS there! He really loves you, Victoire, even though you might not think so."

"Love. Don't talk to me about love! How could he ever care about me, a girl who has no idea what's going on and even less of an idea how to deal with PEOPLE?"

"Love's weird, Vic. If you don't believe me, just look at Aunt Ginny. I've heard stories about her when she was my age - they aren't good ones, believe me - and yet she still found someone. It gives me hope - if there was someone out there for HER, then there's gotta be someone for me too."

"Yeah, but it was different for her. She knew who she was going to be with when she was ELEVEN! We're not that lucky, Roxie."

"You are..."

"Yeah - since Teddy still seems to think I'm worth caring about, maybe I am that lucky. Still, I'm just not sure about life or love or anything..."

"Just hold on, Vic. If life made sense, the world probably wouldn't exist. Get used to the chaos, cause that's what life's like when you've got family members coming out your ears and approximately three people you can really talk to."

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A/N: Still needing suggestions... Thanks to yellow14 for her idea (more detail about the accident), which I was more than happy to use. Updates might be a little more frequent for this starting in a week or so, when I finish another multi-chapter fic. As always, please review and thanks for reading.


	6. Chapter 6

After Roxie left, I spent another few minutes crying when I heard someone calling my name. I turned my head and saw - who else - Teddy. My life was getting SO predictable lately!

"What do you want?" I asked, trying to make it sound like I didn't want to speak to him. I've always been a bad liar - apparently that runs in Dad's family - so I knew it wouldn't work. God, how I wanted to tell him how sorry I was for the personal hell I'd accidently put him through, but I just couldn't.

"Why'd you run?" he asked in a way that only he could.

"I really don't know," I said. "How'd you find me?"

"Something told me Roxie would know where you were, so I asked her."

That settled it - when I got my hands on dear darling Roxie, she was SO going to get it! "That brings me back to my original question - what do you want? It's just not like you to just come out here and make sure I'm okay."

"People change, Victoire," he said, looking straight in my eyes. In an instant, I understood everything. At the very moment that he had started to realize how much he really cared about me, I'd been snatched from the world. Now, seven years later, I was back, and all he wanted was to know that I was fine. There weren't words in the world that were good enough to describe how awkward that felt.

"Roxie told me everything about the accident, about what happened after I crashed," I said, almost crying. "You've been through so much because of what happened to me, and I feel like I need to apologize even though I had no control." By now, I WAS crying, yet in a weird way the situation was funny. The irony of it, of me being so emotional over something I hadn't had the ability to control and of the person I liked being sympathetic... It felt good.

"Whatever she said... Anything she said about me doing what I did because of guilt is a lie, because that never had anything to do with it. I panicked when you crashed for three reasons - one, you were and are my closest friend; two, I'd warned the smaller kids that someone was going to get hurt if we kept playing that game and they didn't listen; and three, I was really starting to like you."

Once more I ran, this time to someplace I wouldn't be found.


	7. Chapter 7

Half an hour later, I was in a place I'd always used as a secret hiding spot when I'd needed to escape. Being the honorary big sister of the whole clan gave me plenty of reasons to have such a spot, and I knew its location by heart. There was a river about three kilometers from the house, and near it was a river-cave. It was such an undignified place for a girl of my background to be that no one had ever thought to look for me there. Mum knew where it was, as nine-year-old me had had the good sense to clue her in, but she always pretended not to know unless she really needed to find me. If nothing else, I'd get to cry and be alone in peace.

No luck, I realized as I neared the spot. I'd developed a practice of looking around me before I entered the river-cave, to make sure no one had followed me, and this practice saved me. Between looking in the cave and noticing a swarm of bats and looking behind me and seeing a person of some sort, I figured I needed to find a new hiding place - that is, if I was still young enough for such a spot. I didn't quite know about that, having never really spent time with people the age that I now was, but it was probably not brilliant.

"Haven't I given you enough reason to leave me alone?" I yelled to the person who was approaching me. Given the silhouette I saw, it was probably Teddy - AGAIN. It wasn't like I suddenly disliked him - that was so clearly NOT the case - but I just wanted to be alone, to be able to cry in peace.

"Nothing you could do could make me leave you like this," Teddy said, getting closer to me. He was about fifteen paces away now. I could try to run - it was a tempting idea - but I hadn't yet thought to ditch the horrible shoes. By the time I got those pain-inducing things off, he'd be able to catch up to me in no time at all.

Unfortunantely for me, my instinct to shed the shoes and run like hell won out. By the time he was ten paces from me, the shoes were off and, for good measure, thrown in the river. Mum would probably kill me over it later - I was never into fashion, but I could see how pricey those things were - but at least I had an explanation for it.

So I ran. I was faster than I remembered being, and I'd been pretty good at age 12, so I created quite a distance before Teddy realized what I was doing. I wasn't proud of this, but the need to be as alone as I could get was overpowering, driving me away from people I wanted to be with as much as I could. After running straight along the river for five minutes or so, I decided the best thing I could do would be to head back home. I'd never been what you'd call an endurance runner - more than ten minutes had been impossible - but this weird instinct/feeling/whatever it was had taken control. All I had to do was follow.

About fifteen minutes later, I crashed into the party, looking every bit as terrified as I felt. "Your SHOES!" Domi shrieked, catching that before Mum even noticed what was going on. "Those were MINE! Aunt Gabrielle gave them to me for my last birthday, and she assured me they weren't cheap."

"If you want them back," I said nonchalantly, "feel free to search in the river for them." This was probably not the best explanation I could give, but it was a true one, and I didn't think I had time to do better.

"What happened to you?" That was Roxie, the only person who noticed the general aura of terror I seemed to have.

"If you weren't my cousin, and if you weren't the only person I know who's willing to give me straight answers, I'd hurt you," I said, hoping none of this would be mistaken for insanity by the people who were watching. "First you send Teddy after me..."

"I didn't send him after you!" Roxie interrupted. "He asked where you were, and I told him. I thought you'd WANT to talk to him! What, is there some kind of problem with that?"

"YES! Anyways, after I take off the first time, he follows me, nearly to the grotto. I tell him to get lost, and he says that nothing I can do will keep him away from me - something like that, at least. So I yank off my shoes, throw them in the river, and start running like hell. Does no one get that I need to be alone?"

"Stop running from people!" Roxie yelled at me. "Can't you just accept that people care enough about you that they don't want you to do anything stupid? I mean, the thing with Holly was a public service and besides that I told you to do it, but you're not okay and your judgement really does need to be questioned. I, for one, think that being alone is the last thing you need, and for once I think people agree with me!"

"You have a point," I said warily. "But still, would it really kill you guys to let me sort out how I feel in peace?"

I didn't say anything after that - not like anyone would've heard me if I had, though. The relatives started a lively discussion - and lively by our standards is downright mental by anyone else's. There was a lot of yelling, three people who wouldn't take no for an answer and were all against each other, and a general aura of panic.

It was in the middle of this mayhem that Teddy finally turned up, looking so certain about whatever it was that he was about to do that I nearly slipped under a table...

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A/N: The ending is in sight! I've worked out the final two chapters, which should be up soon-ish (as in when I get time to write them - school's getting steadily more time-consuming).


	8. Chapter 8

"What is your PROBLEM?" I yelled. Everyone stopped talking, turned their heads, and began to watch. If nothing else, watching what was likely to be one of the biggest fights in family history would be interesting. It was pretty hard to outdo the legendary clashes - when your dad comes from a family of redheads with tempers to match, you hear some good stories.

"Could you just let him talk?" someone yelled at me. I wasn't sure who it was, and I didn't care. There was something I wasn't being told, and I wasn't going to run away a fourth time.

"What is it?" I asked gently, knowing how ridiculous I probably looked. My shoes were in the river and probably halfway to the ocean, my clothes were in pretty bad shape, and my hair was ruined. Domi would quite likely chew me out over all of that later; I had a good feeling she'd be worse than Mum and Aunt Gabrielle combined. What was weird was that, in that moment, I didn't care how I looked.

"The reason I've been trying to find you," Teddy said, "is because I've spent a fair lot of the last seven years working out how to tell you something. I love you, Victoire. It took the constant feeling that I might lose you to make me see how much I cared. Hopefully now what I've been doing makes sense."

I was stunned. So many emotions ran through me, and I had no idea what I wanted to do next, what would be right, what I really felt. God, I loved that boy more than I'd ever thought possible, but there was still reality to be faced. It was too much, too much to find out why he'd been acting so odd, too much for this to happen in front of fifty-odd people.

Time seemed to stop for a few minutes, or maybe it went really fast. Everyone else around me was simply a blur, and I was looking straight at Teddy, wondering what he would say next.

Words didn't come, however. No, he came closer, and we held on to each other as though there was nothing more important in the world.

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A/N: Really short, I know. Next/last chapter is going to be an epilogue, set a few months later - I think I know what I'm doing, and it is VERY fluffy! As usual, please review and thanks if you have.


	9. Chapter 9

I found myself that night. As Teddy and I kissed, not caring that all eyes were on us, everything started to make more sense than I'd ever though possible. The insanity of the past few hours, the misunderstandings and the bad advice... God, I didn't care! It was such a cool feeling, giving up on reason and rationality and simply being.

The sweet obliviousness was broken, in typical Weasley family fashion, with the screeching of someone whose voice I couldn't place. "In front of the CHILDREN?!?" the voice gasped, and I knew it was the horrible woman currently known as my Aunt Verity. "Are you two mad?"

"No," someone told her, "they're in love. It's basically the same thing, but love is more socially acceptable."

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A/N: Finally finished! I changed my plans for this chapter 15 times - instead of a super-sweet epilogue, you get a short tie-off of the last chapter (big thanks to **Taylor n' Taylor** for suggesting that). Hopefully you liked reading it.


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